From the final braking point of the lap at Turn 16 to Turn 1, there is a 1.4-mile (2.2 km) full throttle run, making it a prime overtaking spot. “Doing a sprint race here will make bring even more action, so there will be opportunities for sure.”īaku’s long straights means teams will be trimming out the downforce from their setups, running skinny wings to give their cars as high a top speed as possible. “It’s a track that is difficult and tricky, and where it’s very easy to do a mistake,” said Alpine’s Pierre Gasly. The thing about this street track isn’t just that it’s quick (Saudi Arabia’s Jeddah Corniche Circuit is faster), but that it mixes high-speed sections with slow, 90-degree corners. That’s what makes it so unpredictable.” What makes Baku such a chaotic track? “But here, everything can turn even on the last corner. “With some tracks, you can kind of guess how it’s going to end up, who is going to win,” said Teymurov. But getting a sixth different winner of the race only went to further prove the existence of “Baku syndrome.” 2022: A tamer affair, dominated by Red Bull as Verstappen led home Pérez for a 1-2 finish.He finished last, throwing away a costly 18 points, while Sergio Pérez won the race ahead of surprise podium finishers Sebastian Vettel and Pierre Gasly. With debris strewn across the track, the race was red flagged before resuming with a two-lap shootout - à la Australia this year - where Lewis Hamilton took the lead for less than a second before running off-track at Turn 1 after knocking a switch on his steering wheel that put the brakes in the wrong setting. 2021: Leading comfortably with six laps left, Verstappen crashed out after a left rear tire failure. 2019: Redemption came for Bottas, who dominated without any major incidents.The safety car took control of the race from Sebastian Vettel and put Valtteri Bottas in position to win, only for a late puncture to hand victory to Hamilton. 2018: Ricciardo crashed with Red Bull teammate Max Verstappen, ending his race early and playing a part in his eventual decision to leave the team.2017: Only 13 cars finished a bizarre race that had two safety car periods, a collision behind the safety car when Sebastian Vettel drove into title rival Lewis Hamilton, and a charge from 10th on the grid to victory for Daniel Ricciardo, complete with a three-in-one overtake en route to the win.Nico Rosberg, world champion that year, took a comfortable win in a race that saw no safety cars and little drama. 2016: A number of crashes in the GP2 (now Formula 2) event that year turned the F1 race into something of a processional, as drivers erred on the side of caution and focused on getting home.When the Baku City Circuit joined the F1 calendar as the “European Grand Prix” in 2016, the high-speed street layout immediately had the makings of an eventful race. The key to tyres at the #AzerbaijanGP? Balancing tyre temperatures between front and rear □️ #Fit4F1 /Iy9fsinSsj “Because each year, there is a different winner.”īut how did one of the newest tracks on the F1 calendar quickly gain such a reputation? And as F1 prepares to embark on not only its first sprint race of the weekend, but a new format with “Sprint Shootout” qualifying, are the chances of chaos now higher than ever? “We even came up with a term: ‘Baku syndrome’” said Turab Teymurov, official spokesperson for the Baku City Circuit. The race promoters in Baku are happy to lean into the drama the high-speed street track so often produces.
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